And With Stranger Aeons
by Ambrelle Shirak
Summary: CWYWF Season 2 has begun! What happened to Kayla? Where's Castiel? What ended up getting released from Purgatory? The world's gone haywire, as forces conspire to raise the personifications of the Seven Deadly Sins. More Cass/Kayla/Sam indecisiveness, plus a new OC. Altered Universe Setting!


**And With Strange Aeons...**

Prologue

"Can we be done with witches yet?" Dean scowled down at the body, tightening his grip on the dagger enough that he could feel the bones of his hand rub together.

"Where there are witches, there are demons." Sam rationalized, wiping a cobweb from his face. "Where there are demons, there's a chance that one of them knows something about Kayla. So... I say... bring on the witches!" Both of them were stooped over, but Dean managed to pull one of his best _Seriously-Dude_ faces at that angle.

"Fine." Dean couldn't argue with that logic. "Let's just go for no more crummy basements!"

Sam involuntarily straightened as he laughed, managing to rap his head against the support beam of the basement. Biting back a swear, he put his hands on his knees, and bent in half. Dean gave his brother's shoulder a smack, gesturing back toward the basement's entrance.

"What say you we just torch the whole place?"

"Gas main explosion?"

Dean nodded with a little grin, before leading the way out. The witch's demonic master still stood trapped in a Devil's Trap in the kitchen. As Dean straightened his spine out with a groan, the demon snapped to attention, it's eyes flicking oily black to watch them rise from the ground.

"Like the elohim, you rise, yearning to wander the earth once more." The demon's nose crinkled at Dean. "Too bad you smell of the living, you'd make a great demon."

"Look you slimy, power-grubbing toad," Dean stopped just at the edge of the Devil's Trap, careful not to break the plane of power that kept the demon at bay. "I have one question, and one question for you."

It was in the form of the young witch's landlord, a handsome man in his early fifties, with a neatly trimmed goatee and military style high-and-tight haircut. The sneer it wore looked unnatural. "And if I answer? You set me free?"

Dean spun the demon-killing knife in his hand, purposefully catching the light. Sam spoke for him. "If you answer, he won't use the knife on you."

The sneer faded, the demon taking a step back to the center of the Devil's Trap. It seemed to consider it's options, looking carefully at the knife in Dean's grasp. Finally, the demon nodded.

"The nephilim girl... Kayla. The one you demon's kidnapped from us last year. Where is she?" Sam's voice nearly cracked toward the end. Especially when the demon fixed him with a blank look. That blank look started to turn to terror as Dean raised the knife.

Hands up, the demon bade them to wait. "I have no idea who you're talking about! The nephil are all dead, have been for centuries! The whole flood thing, y'know?"

Sam sighed softly, turning away from the circle, and scrubbing his fingers through his hair. After a few more seconds of listening to the demon try to explain himself, Dean stepped into the Seal and drove the dagger into the demon's stomach. Neither of them watched as the demon sparked within the meatsuit, illuminating bone and sinew before twitching once and going limp. Dean dropped the corpse to the floor, and pulled a paper towel from a nearby rack, wiping the blade down carefully.

After a few more moments of lingering in the kitchen, Dean followed his brother. Sam had retreated to the living room, and was standing with his head against the front door of the house.

"Sammy?"

With a start, his little brother straightened up, half-turning to see what was the matter. "I'm okay. Really."

"We'll find her, Sammy. We have to."

"How? The demons are clueless. Cass... is probably dead. None of the locator spells seem to work. And... what would we even do if we could find her? You saw what she did? She... vaporized Cass!"

"We don't know that." Dean wanted to avoid this argument. He felt defensive, and protective all at once. "He could just be banished.. injured, recuperating, or dealing with clean-up on the warfront, you don't know!" He swallowed his next words as Sam raised his head to give him a withering look. "Let's just blow this joint, and get back to Bobby. Maybe... maybe he's found something."

Sam didn't answer. Dean wasn't sure what worried him more, his brother's sullen quiet, or the fact that it had been nearly eight months without a peep from Cass. There were more things to hunt than ever, hundreds of souls haunting the world, figuring out how to reach across the veil with alarming skill. And witches, more witches than ever.

Together, they hopped down the steps of the little quaint Wisconsin home. Sam headed to the Impala, while Dean dug his father's lighter out of his pocket. A few flicks, and the Zippo set the paper towel he still carried ablaze. Flicking the burning ball through the open door of the house, Dean turned and bolted down the yard, diving into the driver's seat. That little fireball would catch the propane gas any second, and he wanted to be far away by the time it happened.

They weren't even out of the block when the house went up with a dull _whump_. Dean began counting, and had only reached twenty when Sam leaned into the back seat to retrieve a book. Using his phone as a light, Sam flipped through to his place, and settled down to read. Dean sighed softly; it would be a long silent ride back to Bobby's.

* * *

Dean had been driving for nearly six hours, while Sam flipped through pages in the book. Forward and back, forward and back, he couldn't seem to make his mind up what parts to read, in what order. Finally, as the silence was bearing down on them, and Dean was mentally preparing for his much deserved nap, Sam snapped his fingers.

"Elohim!"

"What?" Dean risked a glance at Sammy, who looked pleased as punch with himself. "I think you lost me somewhere there, bro."

"Elohim. The demon likened us to rising Elohim when we came up from the basement. It's Hebrew. Jewish." Sam continued as Dean gestured for him to explain. "Not Christian. Not Catholic. We've, I mean, I've been researching pretty much just the Christian takes on the Nephil and the Angels who begetted them."

"Begetted? Is that even a word?"

"Dean. Yes. It is. Right now, it is. Look, what I'm getting at is that the Christians pretty much denounced the books of Enoch has heretical, and non-canonical. But I haven't even thought to look at the Judaic Torah, or the Talmud." Sam was animated, flipping through book he'd brought along. "I need to call Bo-"

His phone began ringing right as he was picking it up off his lap. With a quick swipe, he answered it.

"I was just about to call you, Bobby," Sam almost laughed, but the sound died on his lips. "Yeah, we're on our way back now. Aberdeen. South Dakota. Yeah, it's not really on our way but... okay. Got it. Oh, Bobby... can you get together all the Kabbalah, Talmud, and Torah stuff you've got. I think I may have another way to find Kayla. Thanks, Bobby... you're the best."

Sam hung up, and pulled up the navigation app on his phone. Dean waited expectantly for the first direction to be spoken, and took the offered exit to get them on a more northerly track through Minnesota.

"Apparently, there've been a bunch of strange symbols that have seemingly appeared out of nowhere carved in trees, in the corn fields, and in the sides of some houses around Aberdeen."

"Crop circles?" Dean hit the steering wheel of his car, and immediately regretted the action, patting the leather and apologizing to her under his breath. "I hate fairies."

"No promises that it's fairies again... I think they've had enough of you as you've had of them." Sam tried to laugh it off, but when he tried to remember the escapade with the Leprechaun and the alienists, his memory flickered back to a darker time. Instead of smiling, he rubbed his eyes to dispel those thoughts.

"Get some shut eye, we got another hour, or two at least before we get close." Dean grinned as Sammy returned the book to the back seat, and curled up against the door. "I really hope this ain't more fairies."

That got a chuckle out of Sam. As soon as he knew his brother had drifted off, Dean reached out to tune the stereo. Rolling through the stations, Dean listened for a good song or two between bursts of static. Catching something, he tried to hone in on the sound, only to be rewarded with more static. A few seconds later, clear as day, and unmistakable as sunshine, they came over the speakers.

"_And the king said unto her, Be not afraid: for what sawest thou? And the woman said unto Saul, I saw elohim ascending out of the earth._"

"Kayla?" Sam sat up straight, focused on the radio. "That was Kayla! Dean! Stop! Stop! That was Kayla!"

Wrenching the Impala into the breakdown lane, Dean could only watch helplessly as Sam fought with the radio to find that particular frequency again. His brother was breaking, and he couldn't stop it. Sam begged the radio to give him Kayla again, to let him hear her. If she could reach out, they could find her. Dean tried three times to stop him, saying his name, until finally, he forcibly took Sam's hands away from the radio dials.

"Sammy. That couldn't have been here. That was just some bible reading, some-"

"No, Dean. I heard her. She said she couldn't hold out. She needs our help. Screw Aberdeen. We need to find Kayla."

Dean's expression softened. "You were asleep, Sam. You were dreaming. That wasn't Kayla on the radio. Look, I want to find her just as bad as you do, but we can't let others suffer because we aren't doing our jobs."

"So we let Kayla suffer, while we save other people? Is that what your justifying?" Before Dean could open his mouth to argue the point, Sam waved him off. "Just drive, Dean. Do what you think is right. You always do."

Dean tried to read his brother, stared at him for a long few minutes, before putting the Impala back into gear and pulling back onto the highway. Sam stared out the window, while they sped toward Aberdeen.


End file.
